


Like A Slow Fire Burn

by Measured



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Community: comment_fic, F/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/pseuds/Measured
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t so much that the perfume she wore reminded him of his ma—it was apples and oranges, literally, even, given that Miss Pauling wore something citrusy while his ma preferred flowery stuff–it was just that strong enough to mask the cold metal smell of the bases when she was there. Just a breath and he remembered nineteen-fifty-five and the gossip of ladies, back when the war was the Cold War and he was going through the daily drills of hiding under his desk, and not his old friends and neighbors dying down in Vietnam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Slow Fire Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Originally meant for _any, any+/any, the smell of her perfume reminds him/her of home_ , but that's been filled, so I did it for _Any, any, follow your nose, it has a better sense of direction than your heart_ Title comes from Run by Matt Nathanson.

After the whole damn day of matches was over, Scout laid back in the shade and thought. Now, he wasn't one to contemplate the world and all that crap, he'd had enough of that in school, and Engineer could take his conundrums and philosophies and shove it up his ass. He wasn't going to have any of that. He'd run a couple miles to cool off, but he still hadn't sweated the wanting out of his system, and the scent of perfume still had him caught up and distracted. He tossed his ball up, feeling restless and frustrated and caught it. 

She'd been at the base and he'd just missed her again, only just catching a whiff of perfume in the air where she'd been. Now that smell was haunting him like some damn ghost and he couldn't get his head straight.

So, he thought, because anymore running and he'd have fricking blisters, because he couldn't stop himself and they came whether he liked it or not. The scent was faint now, but he remembered. She always made him remember.

It wasn't so much that the perfume she wore reminded him of his ma—it was apples and oranges, literally, even, given that Miss Pauling wore something citrusy while his ma preferred flowery stuff–it was just that strong enough to mask the cold metal smell of the bases when she was there. Just a breath and he remembered nineteen-fifty-five and the gossip of ladies, back when the war was the _Cold War_ and he was going through the daily drills of hiding under his desk, and not his old friends and neighbors dying down in Vietnam.

Ma used to take him when she got her hair done. He was the youngest, and always fighting with his brothers, so he got dragged all over the place he didn't want to go. After a while, he hated it a lot less, because one of the ladies who got her hair done at the same time tended to cashmere sweaters about a size too small. 

The smell of that perfume reminded him of good days, _simple days_ of throwing his baseball at walls and putting sticks through fences just to make a bit of noise, the dreams of making it to Fenway park and watching the Red Sox win for once. The impossible dream he'd almost had.

Nowadays, though, he wasn't even sure where to begin, because nothing was simple anymore. Being around her was a special kind of torture, like getting the breath knocked out of him. She was so close and somehow not yet his. Talk about a force-a-nature, there was such a draw between him and her, so magnetic, he couldn't imagine her not feeling this. It was so hard not to just reach out and kiss her, touch her, brush a stray hair back behind her ear. It was like there was freaking sparks between them. He'd run for hours and the wanting would still be there, just as strong and not sweated out. He'd go out and look for other girls, and the wanting would still be there, long after they'd left, giggling at him, after he'd forgotten their names, hers would remain.

There were plenty of girls he could just go for a roll in the hay with, but Miss P? She wasn't the type of girl you just went once with. He wanted bury himself against the scent of her and just lay all day in bed with his head resting on that fine chest of hers, to pull out her bobby pins one by one and put her fingers through her dark hair, he wanted to _take her out on dates_ , to buy her flowers and tell her she looked great that day, to see her smile.

He wasn't used to this sort of wanting that seemed to move the earth along with him and eat up his brains and common sense. Literally, even. She'd be talking about missions and directions and he wouldn't hear a word because he was distracted by how sweet her lips were, how much he wanted to kiss them, feel them on him. It'd gotten to the point where Engineer was even taking notes just so he'd have a damn clue what they were doing this time around and he wouldn't get himself killed forgetting that it was a capture point mission, not an intel mission.

Most of the time he had all these really suave things planned, but blurted out these dumbass comments which made her look at him like he was something nasty she was scraping off of her shoe. But it was all right. He'd learned early that life was a fight, and you had to beat at it to get even the crumbs. Sometimes had to push at the walls and bend until he forced himself to change, because hell if the world was going to change for him or ever give him a break. Whatever he wanted, he'd have to take for himself.

When he was young, it was teaching himself to run, and that first freedom of pulling ahead of his brothers and for once being more than the runt of the bunch. It was the first time he'd really had a shred of hope, outside of his technicolor daydreams of super heroes and Saturday morning cartoons. He might've not been the smartest of the bunch, but he could yell the loudest to make sure people heard him, and he could run fast. And in the end, he'd run so fast that he got himself a ticket out of there, and after that he never doubted the sorts of things he could do. All he had to do was try harder. His ma always told him _don't you doubt yourself, now_ and Scout never did. 

The breeze caught up a bit of the perfume and he looked up. It took only a second to realize it was coming from his bag, and she was still long gone on some other base.

It took ages to figure out what she wore. Back then, he spent every morning off hitting the stores around the bases, but none of them just fit. Sure, he could've just asked her, but half the time she wouldn't even respond. Plus, it would've ruined the surprise of finally finding it, and unlocking the pieces of her puzzle. He spent days out browsing the stores, flirting with shop girls and going on a hunt for just the right smell. It was by chance that he found Azuree, some expensive French crap hidden away in the back. But it was a perfect match; just her scent.

Back then he had thought about giving it to her, but in the end he kept it stocked away by his bed, like the Doc with his ether, he'd breathe it in and remember laying on red vinyl seats and looking up at the ceiling, the summer heat as he gripped the baseball he'd snuck in, he'd remember the sun on her pale skin and that short mini-dress that fit her so well and which featured in so many of his dreams as she walked away for another day, as she walked away from him.

These days, he was spraying a bit on his bag to keep her with him, like some kinda good luck charm. The blood never got to him, the gore? Bring it. Her perfume was a reminder that he had to man up and take his deaths, and do the best damn he could to capture those points and intel, because who knew when she could be watching and that might be the time she finally realized what a handsome, amazing catch he was, and everything she was missing.

But more than that, the perfume made him not just remember, but fantasize. Sure, he had plenty of em, and most of them had Miss Pauling, though there were quite a few of Miss December in her cute little Santa dress. Anyways, there were the old standards–the one where she was in the sexy nurse outfit and gave him an _examination_ , the one where she was a naughty teacher who _disciplined_ him, the usual stuff. But lately he'd pulled some image with her all done up in white and looking up at him with affection in her eyes as he pushed up her veil. She was smiling at him, _because_ of him, laughing at some amazing story he was telling her of his mountain of intel with her name on it, about how he'd make her so damn happy she'd forget all the lonely days before she met him. The worst thing was, it was this drug of a fantasy, one that would make him feel all great until he'd remember she didn't look at him like that. 

At least, not yet.

Ma always said he was a dreamer. Sometimes the lines got blurred between the super hero he dreamed about being, the one who got all the chicks and saved the world, but it wasn't too much of a stretch. He could run faster than anyone he knew, he got out of Southie alive, something plenty of the kids his age didn't. If that wasn't superhuman, then he didn't know what was. These dreams weren't like the ones where he sat back and thought of him saving Boston, singlehandedly winning the pennant for the Red Sox, and flirting with all the girls. There was something truer, more painful, and there was always the harsh feeling of falling, like getting the wind knocked right out of him when she'd just give him that _look_ like he wasn't even worth the time it would take to talk back to him.

But that was all right. Scout never let it get him down for long. If life had taught him anything, it was that he just had to try harder, because the only other option was accepting that he was doomed to die young in the gutters, that he'd be just like Patrick and Donovan and Michael, all one of the boys and dead by the docks, or Kevin and Keith, who'd shipped out to Vietnam and been shipped back in caskets. 

He used to tease his brothers and friends for being stupid over girls, because he was never gonna be tied down, but nowadays he was eating his words, and oh did they taste bitter. Because all it took was a whiff of Azuree and he was running off after her, trying to give her the world and refusing to believe for a second that she might not want it.

**Author's Note:**

> for the record, Scout's mother wears Je Reviens and Evening In Paris.
> 
> http://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Bourjois/Soir-de-Paris-Evening-in-Paris--3604.html  
> http://www.fragrantica.com/news/The-Lauder-Chronicles-the-50-s-60-s-2000.html  
> http://www.ehow.com/info_8198544_popular-colognes-1960s.html


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